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Saturday, 22 March 2014

Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad
Sex Scene?

Just because it's hard to watch
doesn't mean it's wrong.

"Nymphomaniac"; Photo: Zentropa
Entertainments/the Kobal Collection
I think a lot of what we're reacting to
when we criticize graphic sex scenes
we're confronted with is our own
compulsion to abide by societal
standards. If we say the sex in Blue is
the Warmest Color "bored" us, then
we're communicating to others that
we respect women and refute the
male gaze. If the sex in The Wolf of
Wall Street upset us, then we're
subtly saying that we're upstanding
citizens who would never reduce
women to playthings. And if we
found the sex in Nymphomaniac
about as erotic as watching paint dry,
we clearly have a healthy
appreciation of intimacy. Our
statements on these movies are just
as much about us as they are the art.
But by damning these depictions, we
are also damning a part of our
psyche. So what if these movies
turned you on? What if Child of God
turned me on? Does that make me an
outlaw, too?

In James Franco's latest directorial
effort, Child of God (based on the
Cormac McCarthy novel of the same
name and out August 1), the
protagonist, Lester Ballard (played
with furious intensity by newcomer
Scott Haze) is an outcast. While he
may or may not be mentally
challenged—a lot of his decision
making certainly seems impaired—
what's most striking about him, other
than his penchant for dead girls, is
his will to live according to his own
standards. After he's had his land
sold out from underneath him, he
becomes a lawless man squatting in
the rural outskirts of Sevier County,
Tennessee. Even in circumstances
more dire (and way grosser) than
humanly imaginable, Ballard starts
each day with intention. Even when
trapped in a corner, he's able to
cockroach out of it. His daily life is a
living hell and yet, he doesn't want to
die.
But back to his penchant for dead
women. Over at Esquire, Stephen
Marche comments that sexually
explicit films such as Blue is the
Warmest Color and Nymphomaniac
(about which I have also opined ),
are machinations of "someone else's
porn." And to a certain extent, I
agree. What seems risqué, lewd, or
sexy to one person may seem benign,
commonplace, or vanilla to someone
else. And vice versa. But for anyone
who's seen David Lynch's Blue Velvet,
depictions of bizarre, porn-level
proclivities have been de rigueur
since the '80s. Feeling tortured
instead of titillated during a sex
scene isn't a new phenomenon.

Blue Velvet"; Photo: Mary Evans/
Ronald Grant/Everett Collection
Related: Love in the Digital Age:
'Eternal Sunshine,' 10 Years Later
And then, there is Child of God. As
Variety pointed out in its post-Cannes
review, the film is faithful to its
literary namesake. Even a scene in
which Ballard wears a dress and dons
a wig made from a scalped woman's
hair is pulled directly from the pages
of McCarthy's 1973 novel. However,
the most alarming moment comes in
the form of sociopathic tenderness:
After discovering a dead girl in a car
(she and her lover have seemingly
asphyxiated themselves as a result of
living in a town more depressing
than Winter's Bone ), Ballard proceeds
to have sex with her body, and then
makes her his live-in girlfriend. Yup.
As questions about her rotting corpse
infiltrate your subconscious ("But
does she smell yet?" You force
yourself not to wonder), he dresses
up her limp body in an off-the-
mannequin frock, brushes hair off
her ice-cold forehead, and chides her
for being "the most forward girl he's
ever met." It's a pretty traditional
preamble to casual intercourse,
really. That is, if you don't factor in
that she's dead.
Of course, this
isn’t necessarily intended to be
erotic. Director James Franco
probably wants us to feel
uncomfortable—to force us into a
small room with a necrophilic
murderer and dare us not to squirm.
But he does so without any judgment.
There is no moral axis guiding the
viewer to reprimand or relate to
Ballard. It's just there. And for most,
it's awful.